My Bible reading this morning had me in both Nehemiah 2 and Acts 12. These are the accounts of Nehemiah’s and Peter’s work of building up and strengthening God’s people as they faced opposition. Don Carson makes an important observation on these accounts: “The lesson of these radically different experiences is one that we must learn again and again: God’s servants do not have the same gifts, the same tasks, the same success, or the same degree of divine intervention. It is

MY FAITH WAS STRENGTHENED and my expectations increased as I read Ezra 7 this morning. Three times in that chapter (and once in 8:18) we read that “the gracious hand of God” was on Ezra as he endeavored to do the work of God. “The king had granted everything he had asked for” because the gracious hand of God was on him (7:6). Ezra was brought to the place of his work, Jerusalem, for the same reason (7:9). And because “the hand of the LORD my God was on me”, Ezra says, “I